Holidays would land on same day under proposed calendar

WASHINGTON — How would you like to have New Year’s Eve on a Saturday every single year?

It’s just one possible benefit touted by a pair of Johns Hopkins researchers who say the calendar should change and the world should get rid of time zones.

Astrophysicist Richard Henry and economist Steve Hanke say their calendar would not only be convenient, it would save money.

That’s because with balanced quarters of the year based on two 30-day months, followed by one 31-day month, complicated calculations of how much interest you owe or the bank owes you, could get a lot simpler.

The calendar also would eliminate the need to rejigger school and work calendars each year since weekends and public holidays would always fall on the same dates.

The calendar keeps the same names for the 12 months, but some end up with a different number of days.

There would be a leap week every few years at the end of December, rather than a leap year every four years in February.

In their article in January’s issue of “Global Asia,” the researchers also advocate for using just one time and date for the whole world based on Universal Time, formerly Greenwich Mean Time. That would eliminate time zones and might take some getting used to. If you wake up at 6 a.m. now, the clock would read 11 a.m under the researchers’ idea.

The Gregorian Calendar now used started in 1582. It adjusted the calendar said to be instituted by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE.

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